The programmable aspect pertains to using multilevel semiotic addressing and differentiation means, fuzzy logic interpretation means and fuzzy semiotic expert system means. The means are made to provide individual and variable user experiences as well as qualitative evaluations and qualifications of the content and its user. They allow to construct a user and provider friendly interactive multimedia-system and a related usage expert system. For the purpose of the invention, a game, a film, a docu-fiction, a documentary, a tutorial, an advertisement, a music clip or full show recording, an info- or ludo-tainment program and the like as well as combinations thereof correspond to the definition of content. Within this context they are summarily considered to be stories rendered via audio and AV production and broadcasting.
Variably programmable interactivity according to the invention hence applies to all still or moving picture based applications, audio or AV applications, such as movies, feature films, films, animations, games, documentaries, docu-fiction, clips (short versions) in general, clips of shows, sporting events, news, alerts, performances, advertisements, or tutorials, infotainment, edutainment, ludo-tainment.
It also applies to printed material with novel features and interactive means and characters, dolls, toys, robots and the like that benefit from providing the viewer or user with individually variable interactivity means and correspondingly configured content.
It applies to all story telling which is based on still or moving picture and sound receiving and sending devices and systems. Such devices may be contained in but are not limited to the following list. It applies to digital and analog video and AV applications including video on demand (VoD) and media centers including 3D and virtual reality based AV systems. It also applies to a variety of fixed, portable and on-board devices and combinations thereof for viewing and interactive usage such as TVs, set-top boxes (STB), recording/playing devices like digital and personal video-recorders (DVR and PVR), arcade game stations and 3D and virtual reality rendering systems. It also applies to AV projectors, PC's, media-centers, POI and POS displays, PDA's, portable memory devices, download/store/replay devices, phones, alert, alarm, messaging and planning devices, biometrics, personal diagnostic, medicinal dosage and delivery devices, tablet computers, e-books, i-books, audio-books, flexible displays and the like.
It applies further to fixed, portable and on-board CE (Consumer Electronic) devices and combinations thereof and other known devices including interactive dolls, toys, robots, appliances and the like.
Interactive systems are mostly used to transmit a message, a story, a sequence of stories or stories inserted into other stories. The stories are told, programmed and rendered via scripts, story-boards, programs, real-time input or sometimes a simple sequence of events which relate to an episode of particular story or chapter of a tutorial.
Sometimes one or more characters or one or more narrators take the viewer through living the story. This happens via programmed acting, interventions, events, situations, actions, reactions, encounters, verbal, visual, sound, lighting, speed, various special effects like noise or scent and the like used to convey the message of the content. These means are also used to enhance the experience of the viewer.
In the present invention a story can be a description of an event, a product, a service, a geographical, physical, fictional or real entity, a process or event. It can be represented by a sequence or mixture of event, clip, advertisement, finished story, episode of a story and the like.
A complete story is considered either a single story or the sum of stories packaged together in an offering to the viewer. It is called a content, an asset or a resource depending on the point of view, for example product ownership or producing standard.
The terms “story”, “content”, “essence”, “asset”, “digital item” and “resource” will be used interchangeably through the present application.
It will mostly be summarized as “content”, depending on the terminology used in cited documents and items or in the description of the invention.
A distinction will however be made between “main content” and “sponsored content”, “main content” signifying the movie, show and the like “main” content selected by the viewer for enjoyment and “sponsored content” signifying the advertising, news, clips, information and the like content inserted and telescoped into or tagged onto the main content.
The combination of main and sponsored content and the respective metadata etc will be called a “digital item” if considered so according to MPEG 21.
It will be considered “total content” outside of MPEG 21 or within any other similar, existing or emerging standard.
In each case the interactive system contains variably programmable interactivity points located freely within the selected moment, place, situation or event in the script, the scenario or the story-board and is introduced and operated by simple semiotic means within the display of the packaged complete story.
The terms “variably programmable interactivity point” and “interactivity potential” will be used interchangeably through the text of the present application.
The variability of the interactivity is expressed on one side through programmable means of the attitudinal expression(s) or decision(s) with which the character(s), the narrator(s) or the user(s) or both, or the three navigate(s) through the story. The variability is also expressed through reactions of the characters(s) or narrator(s), or user(s) interactions between the character(s), the narrator(s) and the user(s). The attitudes, decisions, reactions and interactions further lead to variably programmable paths which a story can take in and to variable effect(s) in the user's living experience of the story.
Multilevel semiotic means are used as a simple yet expressive user interface and allow a content related, intuitive representation of the interactive elements and the process involved. The means also allow a quick and easy use of such variable programmable interactive multimedia systems.
Fuzzy logic membership functions and rules are used to provide descriptor and interpretation means for qualitative attitudinal and decisional approaches.
The means are used for intuitive navigating, viewing, playing, and living the multimedia content and for rating and evaluating according to the application.
By functional and meaning related links between fuzzy logic interpretation means and multilevel semiotic representation means according to the present invention, it becomes possible to execute the innovative interactive functionality in an unprecedented way.
According to the invention, the expressions of interactivity parameters and operations are coded and interpreted in fuzzy logic sets and rules, implied by and interfaced via the multilevel semiotic system.
This allows the unprecedented use of multilevel “fuzzy” (qualitative, linguistic, descriptor) semiotic definitions and variables, “crisp” (numerical or true-not-true) variables, visual and other and semiotic representations, fuzzy logic decision criteria and weighing factors.
The inventive multilevel semiotic and fuzzy logic user interface is used to provide elements of surprise in living the story and interpreting actions, reactions, decisions, votes and scores.
It also provides a simple, intuitive and powerful interface for the user as well as authoring, adapting and authorizing tools for the content author, provider and broadcaster.
The multilevel semiotic and fuzzy logic interactivity system according to the present invention also provides the basis for expert system learning capabilities within an interactive application with regards to the preferences, tendencies, and habits etc of the viewer.
In combination with the multilevel semiotic means according to the invention, the expert system provides potential on-line or separate input, evaluation and information benefits to the media broadcasters, producers and sponsors.
Interfacing the multilevel semiotic and fuzzy logic interactivity system with the content metadata according to the present invention represents a further inventive step, allowing flexible authoring and protecting the interactive content.
Networking will allow users to live comparatively different experiences of a story, an episode or a multitude of episodes and stories, experiences which can be shared and evaluated within multi-user or multiplayer groups and by the supplier(s) of the interactive application or service.
The expert system based on the fuzzy logic and multilevel semiotic system according to the present invention will then provide the basis for evaluation of individual and group dynamics, behavior and learning as well as group sharing and the related potential and evolving on-line benefits to the media user, broadcaster, producer and sponsor.
Additional Comments Regarding Field of the Invention
In general and in the simplest sense the invention relates to interactive story creating, transmitting, receiving and playing using interactive systems and applications.
More particularly, the invention relates to interactive user and content metadata interface means and to means to facilitate content configuration, authoring, production, distribution, authorizing and use of interactive stories.
The invention relates particularly to stories which are configurable and programmable to provide individual, variable and evolving user approach and experience.
Variably programmable interactivity according to the invention applies to all still or moving pictures based story AV transmitting and receiving, to audio story transmitting and receiving on audio devices having an interactive user interface and capabilities and in general to AV devices, systems and means which are equipped to be used interactively.
This signifies, without limiting the invention to such means and systems, that they are equipped with features to convey interactive functionality like displays, keyboards, control devices, built-in or attached memory, software and communication capability beyond simple picture plus sound or picture or sound only playing means for viewing, recording and reproducing.
Further Comments Regarding Background of the Invention
Interactive video and AV systems on one support are well known at least since the advent of formats and devices like the CD-i (Compact Disc interactive) in the late 1980's. (The CD-I Design Handbook, Philips IMS, © 1992 Philips Electronics UK Ltd). Since then the evolution of FMV (Full Motion Video) to MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group) and MHEG (Multimedia and Hypermedia Experts Group) based ISO standards has seen important progress. The development of techniques like UMID (Unique Material Identifier), of HAVi, of interoperability IT networks for home based AV, of the Internet, of digital audio and video broadcasting like DVB-T and DVB-H, of short-range wireless communication systems like Bluetooth™, Wi-Fi, of WiMax, of XML, WML, MFX, QuickTime™ and the like have been remarkable. Hardware and software performance of communication networks, of high performance multi-platform languages, of virtual machines, of interactive authoring program modules such as Java™, of Java™ applets as well as highly configurable operating systems have allowed to fulfill and to surpass by far the pioneering time dreams of living the interactive experience by viewing, playing enjoying and learning. The amount of content delivered and the ways to deliver them to the user is ever increasing, same as the amount of content generated by non-traditional sources. The merging of technologies, devices and formats allows to expand the notion of interactivity beyond a single type of content or device. It also calls for innovative tools for convergence which provide usefulness beyond viewing or playing.
Prior systems and methods of providing interactive video and converting content for interactive use by describing and tracking objects are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,684,715, Palmer; U.S. Pat. No. 5,844,557 Shively II; U.S. Pat. No. 6,154,771, Rangan et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,462,763, Mostyn et al; U.S. Pat. No. 6,496,981 Wistendahl et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,570,587, Efrat et al; US 2003/0085887, Hunt et al; U.S. Pat. No. 6,693,649 Lipscomb et al, U.S. Pat. No. 6,774,908, Bates et al and U.S. Pat. No. 6,625,315, Laumeyer et al. They necessitate detection or identification, mapping and tracking of spatial and temporal position of “hotspots”, pixel objects etc relating mostly to a fixed or moving object on the screen within a video sequence.
It can be extremely tedious to author such interactive applications because of the volume of the object mapping data per image display frame, the respective linkage through a number of such frames, the varying position of the object within a frame, sometimes the varying size or the color of the object, the need for shape-fitting algorithms, non-linear transformation, interpolation, color filters and hence of the complexity of algorithms, of crisp and fuzzy logic scrutinizing and selection and the volume of mapping data for a frame sequence. These systems require excessive processing power and sometimes feature tedious user interfaces by requesting the user to pursue the moving hotspot within a moving picture or to wait for it to appear at a particular moment on the screen in order to obtain access to the interactive feature. Additionally the interactive feature itself is more or less limited to respond to moving objects. However the user may also want to know about the availability of interactive features related to audio or video background, to parts of the background, to scenes, to scene content or context, be it related to a part or parts of the audio content or simply to surprising author or producer input or to spontaneous user input.
The provider on his part may want to furnish and use these features as can be envisioned by today's emerging technology and consumer demands. It is therefore a first objective of the invention to provide novel multilevel interactive means to create, to position and to address interactivity opportunities.
The novel multilevel interactive means disclosed by the invention locate interactivity opportunities which can be related to a moving object without tracking the object itself on the display, or to tracking a scene, its background, or a part or parts of the audio or video content, to a particular context of the related story, to an insert like an advertisement or a spontaneous viewer or producer input.
All of the prior art documents mentioned above only disclose interactivity points related to locating a hotspot and leading to a defined target or targets. It is therefore a further objective of the present invention to provide signs for the interactivity opportunities in a manner that is independent of the shape and relative position of related objects, of backgrounds and scenes as well as of the duration of appearance of a related part or parts of the video and audio content.
Other prior art relies on cooperating devices or add-ons to provide interactive content synchronized with existing content which was not originally intended for interactive use. US 2002/0100063, Herigstad et al, teaches the delivery of interactive material via a second, mobile device to a user viewing video content on a first, fixed device. For reasons of practicality the user needs to be in close proximity of both devices. Tags broadcasted to the mobile device and related to the content and timing broadcasted to the fixed device permit the user to receive and store information and other items of interest on the mobile device for retrieval when desired. The information and other items of interest can be tailored according to known preferences of the mobile device user.
US 2002/0161909, White, teaches the use of downloading a hotspot applet synchronizing a hotspot file with any streaming video file and relies on a web browser within the Internet receiving device for reading and storing the hotspot data file and where the temporal component is synchronized with the video stream.
WO 01/10118 relates to web-based TV and teaches the use of receiving a TV signal including a graphic symbol which generates an active region within the TV display that is related to the graphic symbol and which triggers an action in response to the viewer, sort of a cookie-like hotspot which can lead to user information overload and encumbered access to the really desired interactivity content.
EP 1 304 876 A2 discloses a system and method to display additional information, such as advertising, associated with a selectable display area displayed as additional content together with a given main content. The selectable display area may be visually identified within the main content display by indicators, such as borders around the selectable display areas or icons. Possible actions to be performed by the viewer include retrieval and/or display of specific content including text, video and audio content. A system and method to embed the selectable additional content within the main content stream is also disclosed.
WO 00/70489 teaches about providing hotspots and hot-spaces in a shared virtual world, defined primarily as 3D virtual world. Hot spaces are disclosed as being 2D or 3D dimensional areas of the virtual world. Most of the interactivity opportunities thought in this document are related to space, transport within space and occupation of space. Interactivity can be triggered when a user comes close to a predetermined virtual distance to the hot space or clicks on the hotspot or hot space.
None of these prior art systems allow the user to express his/her preferences for a differentiated action related to the interactive opportunity but are limited to addressing the given hotspot or hot-space without further choice. Hence a hotspot or a hot-space always seems to lead to one single, predefined target, for example a source of information, like advertising, news, music clip, statistics or the like or to a place like a website. It also seems to lead always to a defined action like exploration, occupation or destruction of a space or object, sometimes via one or more clicks or commands and sometimes needing more than one device to achieve a relatively limited interactivity potential.
“Clickability” is an important aspect of evaluating a user interface. It is therefore a further objective of the present invention to provide novel multilevel means to create, to position and to locate interactivity opportunities related to a moving object, to a scene, to its background, to a part or parts of the audio or video content.
The interactivity opportunities can relate to a particular context of the related story or to an insert not necessarily related to the story. The multilevel means will be disclosed further on as extremely simple. They limit the amount of “clicks” or “pointings” needed to execute interactivity commands. They can run on fixed or portable device and software platforms or on interactive CE devices including interactive dolls, toys, robots and the like with minimal changes and overhead on a multi-platform language.
It is also a further objective of the invention to provide a method of signifying the interactivity opportunities which varies little in the sense of software effort between 2D and 3D applications as well as between “light” applications like clips and “heavy” applications like a docu-fiction or a complex 3D game.
It is another objective of the invention to include variable factoring of user attitude, choices and capabilities into the application, not only in the choice of targets, but also in terms of the outcome of the story. Most, maybe all video and AV applications rely on a main character, often in close relationship with other characters to convey the story to the user or on one or more narrator(s) often representing one or more invisible character(s) belonging to the story. The obvious lack of creating meaningful interactive connections between the user and the one or more characters or the narrator(s) requires further innovation to provide novel, interesting and captivating interactivity opportunities.
Ideas for providing interactive media opportunities have been generated since quite a while. In printed media for example, as shown by U.S. Pat. No. 886,172, Bevans, 1908, an educational device is disclosed, comprising a plurality of sections, pivoted together only by a common pivot. Each section thereon has a letter of the alphabet and a pictorial representation designed to be indicated by the letter. For example the 0 section corresponded to Owl, the W section to Winkie and the C section to Cock Robin and the 3 sections together to form the word COW, shown, including the image of a cow. This result appears if the sections were correctly positioned.
The interaction centers around the pivot and the images and words on both sides of the pivot. The idea was simple, effective and ingenious at the time, leading the user through sort of a pivotal “what you see is what you get” approach, something that we all learned much later to appreciate or not in early personal computing systems.
The subject of interactive systems has further been explored in the eighties on the print level for example by John Brennan© Text, 1984, (Geoff Taylor© illustrations) in the book “The crypts of Terror”. With the help of dice, pencil and eraser the story in the book can be read and experienced in twists and turns as if the user was the hero of the story. More recently, interactive story books have been disclosed, such as in U.S. Pat. No. 5,447,439, Nathanson, where a first element of information located on a first place is complemented by a relating second and third element, coming from 2 parts of a second place. The user, mostly a child, was involved to a higher degree than in the previous documents, but still without having its own input. This document became sort of a precursor of early computer aided tutoring systems, such as disclosed in Document U.S. Pat. No. 5,618,180, also Nathanson, teaching the use of a computer to achieve very much the same objective as in the previous document.
Around the same time other documents started to appear, teaching interactivity resulting from an interface between physical objects like dolls and computers like PCs. WO 97/32200, Kikinis, describes an interactive system for training, entertaining and habituating a child via: a doll having a microphone, a speaker, a bi-directional communication link to a PC, data stored in the PC directing doll activity and verbal articulation, response from the user through the doll to the PC via audio conversion circuitry commanding verbal and physical articulations of the doll.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,636,995, Sharpe et al, discloses the synergy between an interactive story book and a graphic tablet via sound clips by association of touch sensitive areas combined with overlaid paper based images.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,010,405, Morawiec, teaches a videogame system where the episodic nature of a particular, simulated comic book script is mostly represented by the corresponding videogame source including game data and instructions. A player-controlled input device to control movements of the player-controlled character is also disclosed.
WO 01/14032, Philyaw et al discloses a sensor based interactive doll located on a node of a global communication network, reacting to stimuli by a user or resulting from user conditioned signals to the one or more sensors.
The user is connected with one or more remote nodes on the communication network in connection with HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol, HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), TCP (Transport Control Protocol) and IP (Internet Protocol) and accessing networks by the locator URL (Uniform Resource Locator) and where the one or more remote nodes return response to the sensors having been activated.
WO 99/00979, Del Castillo, discloses a method and system for encoding control data line by line in video frames into the horizontal over-scan of video signals. Thus, the control data are being synchronized with the underlying video signal and allow controlled devices, such as wireless, mechanical characters to behave like characters in a play or a scene, provide subtitling, e-mail and other functions.
WO 02/47013, Beck, discloses an interactive toy, doll or game play apparatus, being a powered host containing a game unit, RF antennas and playing objects with RFID tags to interactive communication between the doll and the objects, directing the user to position the objects correctly relative to the host and giving feedback on that action.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,554,679, Shakelford et al, teaches the interactive virtual character of a doll that simulates the character of a live person, animal or fantasy figure, mostly by displaying needs, affection, a certain degree of intelligence and/or understanding. This is coupled with a real time clock allowing the interactive virtual character doll to “run” within a user's (child's) living schedule and with a number of external objects that the user (child) is supposed to administer to or otherwise use to play with the doll and which the doll is able to identify.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,663,393, Ghaly, discloses methods that go much further in putting interactive capability into a play device such as a doll. The play device provides functionality that can base itself on past experience with a user and requires response from a user, response which again will be memorized in order to shape the next interaction.
Despite the rising complexity crammed into a particular toy, the cited documents fail to establish a level of connivance between the central character or the characters or the narrator(s) of a story and the user. There is no mention of including and respecting the user, presumably an infant, within the significant complexity of the device and the game. Additionally playing with these high tech toys turns out to be cumbersome for infants and the reliability of operation decreases with the increasing complexity, notwithstanding children's preference for cuddly toys. Some of these interactive dolls, robots, etc., could be thought of like laboratory versions for the interactive home control systems of the near future. However infants and adults alike react easily to the power of still or moving images and the thrill of participating in the evolving story.
It is therefore a further objective of the present invention to put meaningful interactivity into images or image sequences by providing novel multilevel, yet simple, visual means to create, position, locate and interface with interactivity opportunities related to a moving object, a scene, its background, a part or parts of the audio content.
It is also a further objective that the same means treat the response or action of a central or supporting character, be it in a physical or virtual embodiment or particular context of the related story. The response or action can correspond to a basic, initial attitude, choices made and further variations thereof with which the user, the central character, other characters including a narrator, as may be the case, approaches or goes through the story.
It is also a further objective of the invention to provide the user with means to modulate the initial attitude and variations thereof to a certain degree within a story. The modulation may reflect his or her own appreciation and attitude towards the content, the context and development of the story and may lead accordingly to a set of different outcomes. The modulation may relate to a component or degree of the attitude which he/she has programmed for him/herself, the central character or other characters including a narrator or a particular context as may be the case to approach or go through the story.
It is a further objective of the invention to allow the user to modify the initial attitude and variations thereof into at least one more further means to modulate the further attitude and variations thereof to a certain degree within a story.
It is a further objective of the invention to obtain a number of evolving or simply different outcomes according to a number of the varying degrees of the further attitude, which he/she has programmed for the central character, other characters including a narrator, as may be the case to approach or go through the story.
It is a further objective of the invention to allow the story provider to furnish different outcomes of interactive stories according to qualitative appreciation of the user's expressions of attitudes, reactions and variations thereof.
It is a further objective of the invention to furnish innovative interactivity training means to complex applications such as 3D games or other I-AV applications by using a simple interactive means compatible with video or AV presentation of a story and of a simplified sequence thereof.
It is a further objective that the training means according to the invention may illustrate the interactivity opportunities related to an object, a character, to a scene, its background, to a part or parts of the audio content or a particular context of the related story. The training means will relate the interactivity results according to a particular attitude and variations thereof with which the central character, other characters including a narrator as may be the case to approach or go through the story. As can be easily imagined these training means can be applied to full-fledged “heavy applications” such as 3D games or other complex AV applications.
It is a further objective of the invention to provide additionally to the graphic embodiment, a virtual AV embodiment or a physical embodiment of the central character, other characters, the narrator or a combination thereof as the case may be, the physical embodiment carrying AV means for communication and interactivity.
It is also a further objective of the invention in anyone of these physical embodiments to carry means to transfer a tutorial, a summary or an introduction to a suitable fixed or mobile interactive support. By this transfer the physical embodiment will show via the novel means how to create, to position, locate and interface with interactivity opportunities. The opportunities can be related to the interactive system and its components, a moving object, to a scene, to its background, to a part or parts of the audio content, to a particular context of the related story.
It is a further objective of the invention to relate to the user a response or action of the interactive system and its components, like a central or supporting character, be it in a physical or virtual embodiment. The responses or actions can further correspond to a basic, first attitude, choices and variations thereof with which the central character, other characters or the narrator as may be the case, approach or go through the story and how variations of the first attitude can affect the outcome of the story. Along the lines of progress in technology, content manipulation and content itself has been progressing in order to provide the user with more and more interactivity means.
More recently, as listed below, electronic game content has been created to provide interactive, episodic content delivery to a user, to allow behavioral learning, to provide virtual world environments having communication clusters and to respond to interrupt conditions such as occur in fast paced interactive systems like car races, war games and other I-AV content where pace, space domination and surprise effects are key content elements.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,669,564, Young et al discloses a system, method and apparatus to deliver episodic delivery of entertainment content to users. Indeed, one of the challenges of episodic delivery relates to incorporating technology updates into new entertainment episode delivery over remote servers to a user.
WO 0146910, Hatlelid et al disclose a method to create behavioral modification and behavioral learning based on utterances relating to gesture commands and leading to behavioral rules fitted with arbitrary weights to accommodate similarities in utterances and meaning.
WO0133327A1 Hatletid et al discloses a system of chat clusters in a virtual world using avatars and their behavior to indicate to the user which participants in the chat clusters are conversing with each other and which ones are available for approach.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,733,383 B2, Buses et al teaches simulating state changes of computer games based on interrupt conditions generated by a computer including the possibility for the user to select responses to the interrupt conditions.
US 2003/0180700 A1, Barry et al discloses a user controlled educational program allowing the user to select the learning method and the relevant material and to share information within and outside of the learning system.
WO03041393A2, Arnold et al discloses a real time interactive video system. It relies on the user watching real time content on TV, having a separate viewer interaction platform ready, such as a personal computer, a set-top box or wireless means such as a PDA or a mobile phone to access pre-stored content frames on an internet server and from there decide which frame or pixel object on a frame to select and thus access a new content source or resource platform. This fact indicates that for most users it may not end up to be easy to use real time interactive system, given the difficulty of providing real time interactivity in an analog world.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,253,238, Lauder et al describes an interactive CTV (Cable TV) system with a frame grabber which is controlled by a remote processor communicating with home interface controllers over the cable network and which for a viewer selected input frame generates an output frame which can be converted into a TV information signal. However the world is becoming more digital every day and this digital evolution helps to overcome some of the cited problems.
For example US 2002/0124004 A1, Reed at al describes a multimedia search system which takes advantage of at the time recent technology to present state of the art text, picture, audio and animated data retrieval with limited interactivity and fun in the interaction. On the other hand, a growing number of ways, of complexity and of means of access to multimedia content via an increasing number of devices and delivery channels may lead to increasingly complex systems and methods for media management. For example WO 2004/088664, Bettridge et al discloses a method for middleware controlling metadata associated with various media items in a media editing system in which a plurality of media items are related in a “parent-child” relationship in one-way or two-way propagation way from one media to another.
US 2004/0148636, Weinstein et al discloses a method and system for browsing interactive broadcast and web information content, which are presented together, where the presented web information is fully interactive and where the user can rely on all known features of state of the art interactive web presentation. It is easy to see for the person skilled in the art that many media assets in today's interactive, non-linear multimedia story telling content do not always easily permit to establish firm parent-child and other associative relationships. It appears to the inventors that metadata could tend to become nearly as diverse and complex if not more so than the media themselves.
Hence the inventors saw the need to provide interactive user and metadata interface means which deal efficiently with the diverse and growing interactive multimedia environment, yet are simple and effective. Much effort has also gone in developing the fields of streaming and workflow methods for authoring, transmitting, linking and managing multimedia assets (MAM) and multimedia metadata. As mentioned above, the latter field is closely related to the objectives of the present invention.
WO 0045294A1, Chan et al discloses a media metadata storage structure consisting of a number of storage entities related to the media materials.
WO 04057438A2, Chang et al discloses a metadata authoring system for multimedia applications, specifically for content browsing and editing purposes.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,523,046B2, Liu et al discloses an infrastructure for providing access to multimedia file metadata provided in any set of known and supported formats like TIFF, GIF, BMP, IMG and the like which are rendered in a generic format by suitable metadata decoders.
WO 04049199 A2, Incertis teaches linking target files to a main file by encoding the target addresses (URLs) of these target files into the primary filename of the main file.
EP 0941607B1, Chapman et al discloses a system and method for set top boxes to display content in response to viewer input and related to categories of information.
WO 02058383A1 Hensgen et al discloses receiving a broadcast of a program containing a plurality of perspectives of the program, presenting at least one of the plurality of perspectives to the viewer and displaying recorded perspectives to the viewer without interrupting the broadcast.
WO 0169369A1, Delpuch, discloses a system and method of choosing an item from a list of items appearing on a screen by scrolling through the list and where the scrolling process is slowed down for the user in function of a certain condition or quality of the item selected via the scrolling process.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,400,996, Hoffberg et al discloses an adaptive interface for programmable content delivery based on user preference history which are transformed into preferred program indicators which themselves are included in a program category having weighted preference values as well as on machine status and context data.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,418,424 Hoffberg et al discloses an adaptive user interface for predicting a desired user function based on his/her user history and on machine internal status and context.
WO 05008993A1 Fablet, describes a document related to a server network and features necessary for validating multimedia documents in function of the MPEG 7 description of the documents.
In the context of metadata management it might be useful to cite the “Dublin Core Metadata Initiative”, an authorative specification of metadata terms, (http://dublincore.org). One has to consider however that such standards and specifications are continuously evolving and hence, same as other standards related to the field of the invention cannot be considered limiting for the purpose of the invention.
For example so-called “Middle ware” exists to provide end-to-end solutions, spanning from the source-end (head-end) of content reception and storage for TV channels to VoD, Web portals etc and to the consumer. In this context, advertising “clips” which in order to be attractive, tend to turn into “content” hence will be referred to as “sponsoring content” for the purpose of the invention. In contrast, the main content meaning the “essence”, the asset, the movie, the game, the edutainment, the docu-fiction, the live show or event and the like as described above will be called “main content” for the purpose of the invention.
As mentioned before, addressing the integration of “sponsoring”, “main” and “total” content, data called “metadata” (Data about data) are increasingly used to identify and to link the various components of total content together in order to furnish a seamless stream of multimedia to the viewer or user. Hence the invention relates to metadata as a link to and an active part of the innovative multilevel user interface, but is not limited to metadata. Metadata are usually, but not exclusively, located within the “logic layer”, meaning between the user connected “presentation layer” and the “content or asset” layer, called “data layer”. In some cases metadata are located within the content layer itself for content description and are suitably connected within and between these layers.
Content encoding technologies like MPEG-2, Windows Media™, MPEG-4, metadata management tools or “container formats” like MPEG-7, QuickTime™, FlashPix™ and XML based content descriptions and other file formats like AAF, MFX, related description schemes and the like. These technologies and tools strive to organize content and metadata and can be realized in very simple as well as in very complex interactive structures. The file formats are conceived to be preferably agnostic to the metadata schemes in order to allow utmost flexibility to content editors and broadcasters in the definition and control of metadata. Content organization and retrieval is mostly structured according to spatial, temporal and visual data-types as well as according to content relationships. Metadata are generally separated or categorized into content description, a term which seems self-explanatory. They are further separated into segmentation description which relates to timing and sequencing relationships between diverse contents, into instantiation description relating to a program schedule for the selection of a particular content (sponsoring, main or spontaneous) and into consumer metadata which relate to the consumer's history and preference of content usage. The tendencies to create composite digital items, incorporating metadata into the main or sponsoring content itself or vice versa, into the multimedia servers, into the digital capture and reproducing devices and the like will lead to blurring of definitions for some time and maybe will exist in, albeit a few, economically viable cross-over variants for times to come, but metadata are set to remain the content interface path with user interface items in the years to come.
US 20050033760A1, Fuller et al, discloses a digital capture system, capture relating to capturing images via a digital camera or a digital recording device, which allows to extract, format and store metadata and combine them with digital content data in suitable formats such as MPEG-7, QuickTime™, FlashPix™ and the like.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,850,252, Hoffberg, discloses an intelligent electronic appliance embodied preferably by a set top box for interfacing the user, the appliance and broadband media streams and having a metadata processing system compliant among others with MPEG-7 data and incorporating digital rights management features.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,748,382, Mohan et al describes a system and method for describing and managing media assets via storage techniques, a central repository, meaning a digital library and a standard description scheme and tools allowing for media asset management using XML.
US 20030179824A1, Kan et al discloses a method of using the MPEG-7 descriptor technique via object segmentation in order to extract, store and segment video object planes into a plurality of regions by color transformation and the watershed segmentation process.
US 20030187950A1, Rising, discloses a system for selecting digital material objects containing MPEG-7 content descriptions via a query generation tool and a search engine looking for MPEG-7 META tag information.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,411,724, Vaithilingam et al discloses a multimedia information retrieval system which uses meta-descriptors in addition to descriptors of the multimedia information, or “feature” descriptors.
US 20010054150A1, Levy, discloses watermark embedding in a media object in order to specify how the media is to be rendered by combining identification information, location information and information specifying the use of the watermark for various media types and formats, parts of the media object and the desired rendering quality.
JP 2001-086434A2, Park et al discloses the use of a degree of motion description method via MPEG-7 decoder retrieval and decoding.
JP 2003-256432A2, Hiki Haruo, teaches retrieval of image and voice materials in an archive database using an MPEG-7 file via a genre dictionary, a remote retrieval/edit terminal and further edit devices.
JP 2004-153782A2, Huang Zhongyang et al discloses a method to provide digital item adaptation (DIA) for example for advertisement metadata using XML and according to MPEG-21 and defining negotiation mechanisms for transmitting, exchanging, updating the DIA and mostly adapting the digital item so that its content can be transmitted between different kinds of devices according to their respectively different capabilities.
WO03075575A1 Huang Zhongyang et al discloses a step-wise de-multiplexing, retrieving and extracting method interpreting meanings out of the DID (Digital Item Declaration) according to MPEG-21 and interpret the actual meanings of each DID element and transferring the element to the IPMP (intellectual property and management parser) for activating the IPMP protection and management tools.
WO03071807A1, Vetro, discloses a method and system to consistently adapt a digital item according to MPEG-21 via coherent modification of the item's resource and the corresponding resource descriptor. MPEG-21, as an emerging standard, is defining a multimedia framework to enable transparent use across an up-to-date range of networks and devices by implementing the notion of a “fundamental unit of transaction”, called a “digital item”. The digital item is defined as a structured digital object having a standard representation and identification as well as associated metadata or other descriptors of resources contained in the digital item such as multimedia main or sponsoring content.
Given the complexity and data processing “overhead” of some of these systems and the yet sometimes rudimentary means of interactivity presented to the user, it becomes clear that the interactive system domain needs innovation. It lacks simple, pervasive and innovative ways to communicate between the system, its virtual actors and the user, be it a gamer, a student or a TV viewer. Given the plethora of choice, the user wants TV, gaming, news, clips, ads, sports etc “his way”, but none of the cited prior art seems to take into account the user and his/her growing confusion about the enormity of choice as well as the complexity of migrating between applications.
The user might however also want, “maybe, definitely, sometimes, always, most of the time or never”, to know about, explore and enjoy opportunities for interactive usage without disturbing too much the main content just being viewed. Also none of the cited prior art seems to take into account the content providers, e.g., the authors, producers, broadcasters and the sponsors who, far beyond well known POS (point of sales) tactics, would like to know more about the user than his name and address. They need to acquire this knowledge in order to tailor the content offering or just to know about the user's reaction to an ad, to a main content or about a reason for a particular vote on a candidate, a show or any item that requires such information and evolution according to user demand. This on-line information gathering should not distract the viewer from enjoying content primarily destined for entertainment, education or information exchange and at the same time it needs to comply with privacy laws in a variety of countries. This ensemble of seemingly disparate but nevertheless coherent and durable challenges is what struck the applicants as a field needing a simple, inventive, innovative, pervasive and practical means and a universal metadata sub-system for interactive digital content access and usage.
The innovative means are created to satisfy both the user's and the content provider's needs, to be compatible with present standards, techniques and technologies and to able to evolve easily into the future. It is therefore an objective of the invention to provide the content providers and the user with simple means to structure highly interactive main and sponsored content and to let different users approach the same story in different ways.
It is also an objective of the invention to let the content provider furnish different outcomes that relate to these different user approaches and hence create evolving interactive content or characters.
It is also an objective of the invention to provide simple tools to insert interactive means into a story during the initial authoring of the story or during programmed insertion of media like adverts or during live insertion of content like sports or news, basically in any stage of configuring content.
It is further an objective of the invention to provide links between the stories to let the user migrate freely between them.
It is further an objective of the invention to let the user modify his approach and rate his/her feeling of the corresponding experience and communicate and compare with other users.
To this end multilevel semiotic means with fuzzy logic descriptor sets coupled to the multimedia metadata form the basis of the inventive interactive multimedia system and are coupled to an evidential reasoning based on cognitive semiotic multimedia expert system. The means are used to reach these objectives in unprecedented manner, effectiveness and simplicity. The notion of “fuzzy” logic appeared first in 1965 when its inventor, Professor Lotfi Zadeh published a paper called Fuzzy Sets. (Zadeh L. A., (1965) Fuzzy Sets, Information and Control 8, pp 45 to 67. Ref: Prof. Zadeh, Director Graduate School, Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computing, BISC; University of California). Since then, fuzzy logic and fuzzy expert systems have made their way into an enormous amount of successful products and means to control devices, cars and industrial processes, to profile investors, clients, risks, to provide data compression algorithms for video and audio data (including MPEG applications) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) gaming. The products and means are used to extract essence out of data, to process images and sounds, to build expert and decision making systems, such as EP 0 748 482 by the same inventor. Fuzzy logic systems and fuzzy expert systems can easily be programmed in C++ or in Java™ source code, their representation and user interface through applets is very common, the organization usually includes HTML files, class files, domain files, rule files etc.
Lotfi Zadeh stated the principle of incompatibility: As the complexity of a system increases, our ability to make precise and significant statements about its behavior diminishes until a threshold is reached beyond which precision and significance become almost mutually exclusive characteristics. This statement certainly applies to the complexity of the interactive multimedia system including its interface with the user and explains why the inventors chose the route of applying fuzzy logic to the means for interactivity according to the invention. Computing with words instead of or additionally to numbers and processing perceptions instead of or additionally to measurements is well suited to describe and to evaluate the qualitative and sometimes even emotional relationship between the user and the content viewing interface, between the user and the content and between the user and the content providers and sponsors.
The inventors further innovate the notion of computing with words by introducing the notion of computing with “fuzzy multilevel semiotic expressions”. The expressions according to the invention consist of multilevel semiotic means, directly corresponding and related fuzzy logic semiotic descriptors as will be described further on. The use of semiotics for the production of meaning has been an interesting topic at least since the commercial advertisement “1984” produced for the introduction of Apple's™ Macintosh™ and continues to be so with some icons used in computer user interfaces (Shopping cart, folder, garbage bin). Cigarette advertising (Silk Cut™ or Marlboro™ Monument Valley plus cowboy scenery etc), and other emotionally directed advertising and publications about symbolic representations like for example the “Statue of Liberty” follow the path shown among others by the famous “1984” advertisement.
(See study “Visual Semiotics and the Production of Meaning in Advertising” published by the Visual Communication Division of AEJMC, Washington, D.C., August 1995)
Semiotics, or semiology as it is called in France, is a philosophical approach that goes beyond linguistics to interpret messages in terms of signs and symbolisms, using systems of signification. (Semiology from the Greek “semeion”: sign). Signs can be conveyed by 2 D or 3D visual means as well as by acoustic and physical means like gestures, movements and any type of combinations thereof. According to Ferdinand de Saussure (Swiss linguist, 1857-1913), the term semiology can be divided into 2 components, the “signifier” and the “signified” as can be today best understood from the cigarette advertising. (See also “Clefs pour la Linguistique” by George Mounin, Seghers, Paris, 1968 and The Cognitive Semiotics of Film by Warren Buckland, Cambridge University Press, 2000). Patterns of meaning in signs can be categorized as iconic, symbolic and indexical according to C. S Pierce.
Semiotics have been known and used for various applications of in data representations. U.S. Pat. No. 5,632,009, Rao et al, discloses an indirect data representation system and method via an image table including graphical objects representing indirectly the data values in an underlying data array. U.S. Pat. No. 6,834,280, Auspitz et al, discloses a semiotic analysis system including a computer readable medium and method and consisting of a computer and a searchable database containing pieces of media. Portions of the media pieces and of the search query are associated with semiotic describers and signifiers. The describer indicates a semiotic property of the related portion, for example a relationship between portions of a media piece, or how a portion is used or interpreted or its effect. The semiotic describers in the sense of U.S. Pat. No. 6,834,280 are mostly combinations of letters in triadic relations of the object, the sign and the effect of the sign on a potential interpreter.
EP 1231544A3, Sugeno et al discloses an everyday language based computing system including a semiotic base to structure a system of meaning of the everyday language and thus generating a “translated” text.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,116,907, Baker et al, discloses a method and system to encode signs in a given sign language and represents a useful, but not really interactive solution to communicating via visual signals using two representations for a dominant and a second sign to convey content via sign language.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,584,470, Veale discloses a set or sets of signatures and signature based rules whereby a rule contains a name concatenating the signatures in the rule and relates to information retrieval (IR) systems. The document relates to the difficulty of developing systems of meaning, operating on various levels of meaning simultaneously and in natural languages. It relates more to using words or combinations of words to extract information from process words than on other semiotic means.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,636,242 B2, Bowman discloses a view configurer, basically a system and method to assign a view to a particular activity within a multilayered activity.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,275,817 B1, Reed et al disclose a semiotic decision making system which uses semiotic processing modules, a knowledge database containing information transformed into sets of symbols by the modules. The knowledge database is used to make decisions relating to queries about the information.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,394,263 B1, McCrory discloses a configurable semiotic decision making system including a sensor for sensing input data.
None of this prior art uses semiotics for interactivity such as would be applied to everyday interactive multimedia usage, none uses multilevel semiotics and none uses fuzzy logic to convey multilevel qualitative verbal descriptors. None of the prior art documents uses multilevel semiotics and fuzzy logic descriptors to relate directly the particular multilevel semiotic means or set of means, to individual levels and to the respective application and user related meanings expressed by a particular semiotic means or set of means. None of the prior art documents uses fuzzy logic descriptors to relate directly to different level user qualification signified by his use of a multilevel semiotic sign. Indeed according to the state of the art and in themselves, semiotic signs are used not at all or used very little, for example for functions beyond “drag and drop” into a “shopping cart”, a “folder” or “the waste bin” as known from current single level and single meaning user interfaces.
Interactive TV (IATV) as well as interactive advertising (IAAd) is defined by a digital broadcasting and receiving infrastructure, such as a digital TV with a “set top box” (STB), together with a “return path” (cable, satellite, . . . ) for the reaction from the viewer to the broadcaster. The IATV user needs to identify an easily recognizable means to allow such return interactivity when requested from the program contents. In certain European countries, for example the UK, France & Spain, digital interactive broadcast channels use a dedicated remote control device that carries a “red button”, as will be explained here after.
Advertising campaigns for IATV range from web style banner advertising to an enhanced TV style call-to-action (blinking icon) that links to a DAL, a Dedicated Advertiser Location. (Source: Interactive Television Advertising Video Vault”, in Interactive TV Videos, www.broadbandbananas.com). FIG. 1 shows the current state of the art in Interactive TV advertising (IAAd) based on known Interactive TV (IATV) campaigns. The discipline of interactive advertising is used here for the simplicity of explanatory arguments, because its future developments point to increased interactive capabilities. It is also shown because the new capabilities can relate well to other interactive mixed content applications. Telescoping adverts into main content can be likened to converting linear into interactive content or creating interactive content.
An interactive application inserted into a main content according to such advertising campaigns for IATV carries built-in audio, textual or visual invitations that are supposed to lead a user to an intended interaction. Such approach has become known under the name “red button approach” and is called the “press red” behavior, because an interactive opportunity is signaled by a red button on the main content, and the user is supposed to press a specific red button on his TV remote control device to use the “return path” in order to trigger a reaction. During the interactive add appearance, the main content is usually interrupted.
FIG. 1a shows an example of a conventional red button approach. After pressing the red button, the next step is to display a “press select” command, so that a user may continue the interaction by selecting the interactive content, as shown in FIG. 1b, and the user is shown an integration box requesting the user to enter his personal data and to select, as shown in FIG. 1c. During the interactive part of some IA campaigns, the system also counts the number of connections. The user interfaces use only single level signs and commands and do not represent interactive loops as will be shown later in the description of the invention.
Other prior art user interfaces such as WO 2005/040991, Liberty et al, disclose improvements of the pointing devices, providing free space pointing capability by incorporating accelerometers into the devices. WO 2004/102522 A1, Hunleth et al disclose helically arranged menus containing lists of media items to be selected, each item being represented by a section on the 3D helical surface. The user can select items either by pointing devices or by combination of pointing and wheel devices. WO 2004/102285 A3, Hunleth et al teaches a control framework with a zoomable graphical user interface for organizing and using a number of media items coupled to an optional free space control device for pointing, scrolling, zooming and the like user interactivity functions.
None of the prior art documents uses multilevel semiotic means and multilevel fuzzy logic sets as disclosed by the present invention to provide multimedia interactivity as well as to provide a basis for a deductive, evolutionary or evidential reasoning cognitive expert system. It is therefore an objective of the present invention to use multilevel semiotic means and multilevel fuzzy logic sets to provide variable multimedia interactivity to the user as well as a basis for an expert system evaluating qualitative user behavior and decisions and providing variable content outcome based on the qualitative data.
It is further an objective of the invention to allow a great degree of flexibility in adapting to various legislations ruling the privacy of information.
It is finally an objective of the invention to present a technological solution which effectively and coherently closes the interactivity loop between the user and the application, which is simple to implement and compatible with prevailing and evolving international standards, techniques and technologies.